Any advice or thoughts are totally welcome!

Why am I even awake

Do you struggle to START a drawing?

I keep noticing, that each time I grab a pencil and paper it feels easy as pie to make a sketch or get ideas. But starting a digital painting is just so... it's not *slow,* but it *feels* like it ends up taking forever. And early stages of a project always look so supremely terrible it is hard to get going.

There's this thing I notice, where past the mid point of a drawing. It becomes super enjoyable. Thrilling, even. But the road there is ripe with moments where I consider not continuing. It looks bad. It looks like shit. I'll have a color range picked up, I *know* it adds up correctly later, I *know* the perspective or anatomy or structure aren't breaking any rules, but for whatever reason I always feel an overwhelming sense of *apathy* towards what I am doing. I don't think I was like this before. It's like I don't care about a drawing until it starts being decent.

Supposedly that's *healthy,* I keep hearing that attaching oneself too much to one work or idea holds you back. Particularly in concept art, where at times it takes like 20+ iterations of sn idea to arrive at a good result, so clinging to one of the first is limiting.

But what e ds up happening is a weird loss of motivation to push forward. I get an idea, I start it aaaaaaaaaaand I want to put down the stylus. Had drawings lately that take me a week to stomach through sketch phase followed by a flow-state-fueled 6 hour marathon wgere it all clicks and I suddenly bloody love it and question why I was hating it earlier.

Abd I'm left wondering *why* that is. Whole process would be easier if I could just stay focused from the very start. I'm taking *forever* to get anything done over this.

PC: Lilizaap (Instagram)

Ive been drawing for "real" for nearly 10 years. But im still a beginner. I accepted not being able to be a master, and now I just want to feel the joy of creation again. But unfortunately due to personal things that happened, all I can do now is just look at things critically and only notice the mistakes, making me stressed and hate the only thing I really loved. How do I get back from it, allow myself to not be perfect?

tried free drawing after a while. drew some of the people in family guy. but I think it’s pretty good as a rough sketch. free handed this one without looking at reference photos

I'm not sure if this is the right subreddit to ask this, but here goes.

I'm a complete beginner who has barely ever held a pen properly. The other day, I suddenly decided I wanted to start drawing, so I bought a drawing tablet and have been experimenting with it ever since.

I've read a few instructional books, and they all seem to emphasize things like "start with drawing from observation" and "learn to capture the silhouette of objects." So I've been collecting pose photos from social media and sketching the basic skeletal structure and placement of different body parts. Alongside that, I've also occasionally practiced by copying illustrations from artists I admire.

I'm not particularly satisfied with either approach at the moment, and since I feel like I'm making only half-hearted progress with both, I've started wondering if I should focus on just one for a while.

Which should I prioritize first: copying other artists' work or practicing observational drawing?

As I mentioned, I'm an absolute beginner who has barely even doodled with a pen before. My eventual goal is to draw illustrations in an anime/manga style.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

I think this one is a little better than my last. Something os still off though... any advice would be appreciated

Edit: i only have 0.5 mechanical pencil for the time being

The man, the prophet, the legend, George Carlin

my mom is new to art and has grown attached to soft pastel. she wanted me to post this on reddit for opinions and feedback 🥺

ps be nice